Description of the flag

Red flag with white hand and crescent. Somewhat different from the
image above in details, but basically the same flag. It is questionable
how much details we may ask from this kind of flag anyway.Željko Heimer, 24 May 2001

Though the only substantive thing that can be said about this flag photo
is that the thumb is to the hoist on the visible side of the flag,
at least we have some positive info about the design of this flag: shape of
the hand and crescent, and position and relative size of the emblem. On the
other hand, one cannot see clarly on this photo whether there are any fingers,
and the ratio seems to be 1:2.António Martins, 08 Oct 2004

Colors

As for the Anjouan flags, yes, the red has always
been darker than the French red
on the flags I’ve seen (although this may change / have
changed as people try to affirm the French link).Iain Walker, 14 Feb 2000

A photo showing the
flag of Anjouan near to the Comorian national
flag shows clearly that the former’s background is
plain medium red, not dark red.António Martins, 02 Feb 2004

Design of the hand and reverse

On Anjouan
web site it seems that the hand is detached
form the crescent. It’s also hard to say if the
thumb is on the left or the right oriented,
because we don’t know which side of the flag is
represented on Anjouan website.Pascal Gross, 10 Apr 1998

Calvarin [clv02] shows the flag
of Anjouan with the hand directly placed on the crescent.Ivan Sache, 20 Apr 2002

According to the constitution, the flag is charged
with an open right hand. In any case, logic says
it’s a right hand — it would be fairly unthinkable for
an Islamic country to put a left hand on its flag!Iain Walker, 10 Feb 1999

No one doubts, for the implyed resons, that the pictured
hand is right, but the question about whether the thumb is
pointing to the top or to the bottom of the flag remains
because a right hand can be depicted both ventrally and
dorsally, and if only the contour is shown, as in the anjouani
flag, no one can tell the difference. To put it plainly:
Should the thumb be pointing to the hoist or to the fly?
And what about the reverse? Is the hand mirrored or not?,
i.e., are both sides symmetrical (chiral) or identical?…
(By the way, this being an islamic flag, the obverse is
considered with the hoist at the viewer’s right hand.) Please
note that none would necessarily be a left hand, since the
first alternative presents the same design to the viewer on
both sides of the flag, and the second shows the same hand,
viewed ventrally in the reverse and dorsally in the obverse…António Martins, 13 Aug 1999

Political-historical background

According to a report, the separatist movement in Anjouan adopted the
name Mawana, after a sultan that once ruled
the island. A short note in The Indian Ocean Newsletter (764
10.05.1997: p. 4) said that «elements of Mwawana sawed down the flagpole
flying the national flag and hauled up the white [?] emblem of the late
sultan».Jan Oskar Engene, Jun 1997

As far as I know the Mawana flag (the last
sultan’s flag) is the same as the one in the constitution.
The “hijacking” of the Mawana flag by the pro-French movement hasn’t met with
everyone’s approval.Iain Walker, 14 Feb 2000

The flag used by the Anjouani separatists was the personal standard of
the last Sultan, Omar. This information was
communicated in 1980 to L. Philippe [phi02a]
by Said Ali Kemal, the Comorian Ambassador in France, who was the nephew of
the Sultan of Anjouan and one of the sons of the Sultan of Grande Comore.Ivan Sache, 18 Jul 2002

Since March 1997, separatist islanders of Anjouan and the Comoros
government have been clashing over the status of the island. There have
been reports of demonstrations, flag hoisting (and hauling), violent
clashes, deaths and arrests. The flags hoisted are the "flag of a
19th-century sultanate" and the flag of
France.

Reports state that the president of the Comoros
promised in a television speech on Friday 1 August
that Anjouan would be granted more autonomy. This
was to be done by dividing the island into communes.
As we have heard, however, the latest development
is that a separatist president and a 13 member
government has been appointed for Anjouan. On
Sunday, the secessionist leader and newly appointed
president Foundi Abdallah Ibrahim said: «Our demand
is for separation, nothing less.» Nevertheless, Reuters
reported that the demand was for separation from the
Comoros and return to French rule. This would
explain why they fly the tricolour. In fact, according
to the Reunion newspaper Le Journal de l’Ile,
participants at Sunday’s independence meeting (estimated
at some 7000 people), had a picture of Jaques Chirac
with the slogan «La France pour tous». The
newspaper quoted a representative of the Anjouan
government as saying there was two options for
Anjouan: Reunification with France or independence in
association with France. French officials rejected
this. A second report in Le Journal de l’Ile
referred to the new state as l’État d’Anjouan.

The local flag is now described as red by
NANDO Times (report of 6 August, based on AFP
wire): «In Anjouan, where the separatists named a
“government” Tuesday, the red flag of the last sultan
on that island is flying above mosques and on flagpoles
alongside the French tricolour.» An earlier report by
Reuters also described the flag as red. The Reunion
newspaper carried several pictures of the French flag
hoisted in various places on Anjouan, but it had no
picture of the local flag.

TITRE 1: DES DISPOSITIONS GENERALES

CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF ANJOUAN

approved by the Anjouanais [inhabitants of Anjouan]
by referendum on the 25th February 1998.

TITLE 1 : GENERAL DISPOSITIONS

Article 3: The national emblem is a red flag
charged in the center with an open right hand
above a white crescent.

Remark: is it a coincidence that this
article speaks about «the national
emblem» like in the French
constitution? It seems then that there is
just a flag and no coat of arms.Pascal Vagnat, 16 Mar 1998

It is the same flag as the old sultan flag
and as the post-2002 island flag within the Comorian Union.António Martins, 01 Apr 2001

Variations of the flag

Crescent and hand connected

image by Pascal Gross and António Martins, Apr 2003

Calvarin [clv02] shows the flag
of Anjouan with the hand directly placed on the crescent — like
above, but with a larger emblem. The difference in size is probably
irrelevant, however.Ivan Sache, Apr 2003

Horizontal hand

image by Jean-Francois Blanc, 12 Aug 1997

Other flags in Anjouan

At www.anjouan.org,
you can see the flag of Anjouan in the opening
page, and in the page “phototheque”, there
are several photos with flags. Interestingly enough,
we can find more often the French flag then the
Anjouani, and in two pictures, we can see both flags
side by side.Jorge Candeias, 19 Jan 1998

As to the frequencies of the flags, I think that
it was French flag,
this flag and
Mawana flag, in that order, probably
because the French flag is easier to come by! I didn’t
see the Mawana flag much.
Not much policy in evidence, although interesting as an anecdote: I
arrived in Anjouan by boat from Mayotte. In Mayotte the boat (an
Anjouan boat) flew the Comorien flag (the official one, green and
white), as its flag of origin. Halfway over to Anjouan the Comorien
flag came down and the boat sailed into Mutsamudu under the French flag
(Anjouan being “French”, of course).Iain Walker, 05 Apr 1999

Franch-anjouani mixed flag

image by António Martins, 10 Feb 2000

Among the flags I saw on Anjouan in April 1998
included one that was a mixture of the
French and
Mawana flags: basically the blue,
white, red of the
French flag, but with the red part slightly stretched
and incorporating the white hand and crescent
[see photo].
This flag was photographed at the post office in
Domoni, but I also saw it in Mutsamudu. I’ll try and
find out if it’s still being used.
As for this flag and the French one, it wasn’t always
easy to tell the difference — as I said, it was a while
before I even became aware there were two different
flags. But I also saw this one flying from a government
building in Mutsamudu, Public Works, I think.Iain Walker, 10 Feb 1999,
02 Apr 1999 and 05 Apr 1999

The flag on this photo looks like a “tinkering”
of a french and anjouan flag sewed together to show
the aspiration of Anjouanese people to return under
french administration.Pascal Gross, 01 Apr 1999

The hand sure looks black at first glance, but it
isn’t: it’s white: This
picture was taken
with the light source from behind, which is quite
evident if you lighten it up. The hand and crescent
where either made of a patch and sewn over the red
field, or printed using a thick dye (or whatever).
Therefore, the light from behind doesn’t cross the
symbol as it crosses the flag itself. Furthermore,
the upper folding of the fly further obscures the
symbol area, making it look very dark. If you lighten
the whole thing up, however, you’ll see it appear
white by miracle.Jorge Candeias, 02 Apr 1999